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The American Academy of Pediatrics has “pulled an Al Gore”.
In similar amusing fashion to the former Vice President’s claim that he invented the Internet, researchers in the journal Pediatrics have recommended the “novel approach” of letting a fever run its course in otherwise healthy children. (1)
Evidently these doctors are suffering from an extreme case of memory loss or egomania as was the case for Mr. Gore. Either that or they made a practice of napping during their Medical History classes in Med School. More likely, these types of classes weren’t even offered at the request of the pharmaceutical companies donating copious amounts of cash to the particular institution they attended.
After all, we wouldn’t want newly minted doctors knowing anything about the history of effective, non-drug based remedies and treatments, would we?
While it may be claimed that this research is somehow “new” and goes against conventional wisdom, this is simply not so.
Au contraire. Prior to the advent of the American obsession with all things pharmaceutically produced which began to gather momentum in the 1970s, doctors routinely recommended against treating the fevers of healthy children. My own father, a retired MD who specialized in Family Practice, never brought down fevers in his own children nor did he suggest doing so to his patients even in cases where the fevers were rather high at 105F.
Why? Because doing so would prolong the illness, of course! Simple common sense medicine for normal, healthy children.
A fever is the primary mechanism for the immune system to fight off viruses and bacteria. Bringing it down handicaps this natural immune response prolongs the illness and more than likely induces a secondary infection that may require – you guessed it: a visit to the Doc to get a prescription for antibiotics.
Unfortunately, it seems that common sense is something that Pediatricians need a research study to finally embrace.
How to Keep a 24 Hour Bug From Turning into a 2 Week Ordeal
The wisdom of the “leave the fever alone” strategy was driven home to me once again just last week. One of my kids came home from school on Thursday afternoon with a bad headache. Since he rarely complains of anything like this, I figured he was trying to fight off some sort of virus.
Sure enough, within a couple of hours, he spiked a fever to 102-103F. This fever basically held (with a few brief dips to 99-100F after sipping a cup of homemade broth) for 24 hours. Did I treat it with Tylenol or ibuprofen?
No way! He had a big soccer tournament that very weekend and his best chance to still compete was to do nothing!
The fever and headache were the only symptoms he ended up having. They were both gone within 24 hours and he competed in the weekend tournament as planned. He played hard too and in the 88F heat. The kid bounced back fast because his natural immunity was left to operate as Nature intended with no meddling from vitality zapping over the counter meds.
I have no doubt that if I had panicked and brought that fever down justifying my actions in order “to help him get a good night’s sleep for the soccer tournament” that he would still be sick and probably have some sort of secondary infection in his lungs with a lot of mucus and coughing.
Letting the fever run its course is more important than a good night’s sleep for getting well, in my experience! If you absolutely must do something, use homeopathic cell salts or a fever bath to speed the process along.
I am so glad the value of fevers was impressed upon me at a young age. Don’t wait for your Pediatrician to wake up to common sense strategies before adopting them yourself.
References
(1) Fever and Antipyretic Use in Children
(2) Traditional Remedies for Childhood Illnesses
(3) Treating Fevers in Children
Sarah,
I too do not treat fevers. But how did you treat the headache? Got a kid with both here.
Thanks.
Hi Nora, a cold pack on the head and a head massage work wonders! 🙂
If the child is very uncomfortable, I will sometimes give a diluted cup of green tea. If a child rarely consumes any caffeine, a very small amount is typically enough to dilate the blood vessels and bring relief.
Another method that really works is to sit on the side of the tub and put the child’s feet in a hot bath (as hot as he can stand). This draws the blood away from the head as the feet heat up and relieves the headache!
Some of the replies to this post gave me a chuckle. As long as the person posting agrees with your particular views, all’s right, but…let them express a view different from your’s and the tantrum’s produced are laughable. Learn to be tolerable, take the advice you want, and let other folks have their own opinions! As for the advice of this particular post, I learned in nursing school, 31 years ago, that fevers didn’t need to be “treated”, but that doctors would be prescribing medication to treat them anyway. 🙂
Amen! I’m sharing this post!
It is so frustrating to hear my friends say that they “had” to give their kid tylenol for a fever as low as 99 degrees!! And you are so right about cutting the fever off leading to a longer battle with the illness. If my kids get fevers, they only usually last for a few hours, and then the illness is usually over within a day or so.
I try to drop seeds about not stopping the fever, but I think most people think I’m crazy. I love that you point out that this is not a new idea!
To add to the Al Gore troll posts above, I read the article to which you refer, and they don’t seem to be proclaiming that their approach is in any way “novel” or special. It’s possible that you read someone’s write-up on the article, and that write facetiously declared how novel the idea is.
I would just say that you may have pulled more readers into the article and brought attention to it more effectively, but it’s a misrepresentation of not only Al Gore, but the medical journal and the article’s authors as well.
Given the information they’re pushing is actually good, healthy information, as opposed to justification to use new chemical x to cure your child’s ailments, I just with it was as easy to interest people in a blog post that didn’t use hyperbole.
I’m glad I got the information by means of my own research, however. Maybe include links to the actual information next time. Which, by the way, is here.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/127/3/580?maxtoshow=&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=fever&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&volume=127&issue=3&resourcetype=HWCIT
Egads, how many spelling errors do I have to launch out into the internet before I learn to proofread myself.
We try not to treat fevers, but recently my daughter was fighting something that had her fever rising up and up and up. She was at 103 to 104 for a day and a half and then she hit 105.7. We treated it. Do you have an upper limit? Or would you even leave 105.7 or 106 alone?
I’m asking because I got varying advice at the time. We were trying NOT to treat or at least minimally treat and I got three different answers from three different doctors. And, I got an e-mail from someone with an article that advised against treating fevers, but the highest fever mentioned was 104.
anything over 104 you run a huge risk of the child seizing. I think risks outweigh any benefits of not treated once a fever has gotten this high. why let your child have that risk or watch him/ her suffer??
Hi Sarah, once you get in the 105F range, it is up to the parent’s level of comfort in dealing with the fever and knowing the status of their child’s health whether or not to treat. I personally would not, but I feel comfortable handling high fevers but others may not feel the same way. The key to prevent a seizure is to keep the child from running out of blood glucose which is the cause of a fever induced seizure. This is because the metabolism in a high fever is racing so fast that the child runs out of fuel to maintain it. If the child is too sleepy to take diluted fruit juice by mouth due to the high fever, you can inject the diluted fruit juice rectally with a bulb nasal aspirator and achieve the same effect as swallowing it.
But for how long? Penelope is still running a temp of 103/104. So we are going on 48 hours at midnight tonight. It broke this morning and was 100 till after nap time and now its back up to 103/104.
She is hardly eating/drinking but getting enough to keep her blood glucose up.
She doesn’t want a wet washcloth coming near her…so tepid bath is my next move??
Thanks so much.
Now if everyone could channel that defensive Al Gore energy into telling their doctors to check their facts, well, we might turn Western Medicine on its head!
After all, this is a blog and it is supposed to be opinionated. Keep things in perspective.
Sofia
Definitely agree that modern doctors are glorified pharmacists. It’s an issue of control too. Maybe people think that if they make the body behave like it’s healthy (remove symptoms) then it really is healthy.
Cassandra, I think you are really on to something there. I have talked to a number of folks who think that once you bring the fever down with meds the child is no longer contagious even! As if removing the symptoms makes the whole thing go away.
Great post Sarah. I learned from my parents and grandparents to let a fever do it’s job. 17 years ago when my son was very young my mother kept telling me how bad it was to give medication for fevers. I let the fever to it’s job, but if the fever is getting dangerously high I may add an essential oil compress/sponge bath.
Great post! That’s what we do all the time too 🙂 I never give her meds, just stuff to strengthen the immune system (vitamin D & C, echinacea, garlic). I feel so bad for the moms and babies who are told otherwise, and the kids are made to suffer for extended periods only to make it worse with infections later!
Sarah, I posted this on facebook and had a friend say that her daughter suffered a seizure at a temp of 104. Do you know what actually causes a seizure to happen? Are there other factors at play besides a high temp?
Hi Christy, yes a child who runs low on blood glucose will have a seizure. A high fever revs up metabolism big time which is why this happens. Having the child sip on diluted fruit juice (50/50) every few minutes keeps this problem at bay if the child has a predisposition for this.
That sounds like an important detail! I’ve never seen that pointed out before, thanks for this.